A Kansas man was arrested on terrorism charges in connection with a plot to blow up a car bomb at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport, officials announced on Friday. Terry Lee Loewen, 58, described in a nationally televised news conference as an avionics technician who worked at the airport, was arrested Friday morning driving what he thought was a car bomb. “By the time you read this I will -- if everything went as planned -- have been martyred in the path of Allah,” Loewen wrote in a letter to a relative that was part of the criminal complaint released by the government.

Federal officials charged 11 people on the East Coast as secret agents of Russia on Monday in an multiyear investigation that turned up allegations of a vast undercover network designed to collect fresh information for Moscow, including new U.S. nuclear weapons research. The alleged spy ring's members were given the single, primary goal of becoming "sufficiently 'Americanized'" to gain access to the U.S. government's planning and policy apparatus, the FBI said in documents supporting the charges.

Hearts across the Bay Area melted as spectators watched a little boy's dream come true - vanquishing enemies in a San Francisco transformed into Batman's Gotham City. Nearly 12,000 volunteers and adoring fans holding signs lined the streets Friday for Miles, who has been battling lymphoblastic leukemia since he was 20 months old and wanted to spend the day as Batman. More than 230,000 tweets with the hashtag #SFBatkid were sent out by the time Batkid's adventures had finished, according to the Twitter analytics site Topsy.

The toll in the Connecticut shooting stands at 28 dead, including 20 children and the gunman, Connecticut State Police said Friday. Speaking at a televised news conference from Newtown, Conn., State Police spokesman Paul Vance confirmed the death toll, making this the deadliest shooting since the Virginia Tech rampage in 2007. According to Vance, the gunman entered the school and fired at students and staff in one section - two rooms - at the school, he said. PHOTOS: Shooting at Connecticut elementary school Eighteen children were pronounced dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

A U.S. district judge on Monday sentenced a Tustin mortgage broker to 5 1/2 years in prison for shooting at an FBI agent. Alexander Thomas Pirro, 45, was convicted in August of shooting one round at an FBI special agent who had gone to his home as part of an investigation. FBI Special Agent John E. Carroll went to Pirro's Cowan Heights home Oct. 7 to interview him for a bank fraud investigation in which Pirro was not a suspect, said Susan Ficcadenti, assistant U.S. district attorney.

A 19-year-old Ft. Worth man became the first person to be convicted of carjacking under a new federal law put into effect last October. Demond Henderson was charged with pointing a gun at another Ft. Worth man who had stopped his Jeep in his driveway while he went to open the garage door in November of last year, FBI special agent Todd McCall said. Henderson took the man's keys and drove off in the Jeep, McCall said.

A US Airways plane that was recalled to Philadelphia after law enforcement officials received an anonymous tip that liquid explosives were on board resumed its flight to Dallas on Thursday morning after authorities searched the plane and found no explosive materials, the FBI said. Flight 1267, carrying 74 passengers and crew members, resumed its scheduled activities after the fruitless search, FBI special agent J.J. Klaver said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Raids this week on a massive commercial marijuana operation with indoor growing facilities and thousands of acres in Northern California's pot belt have netted 10,000 plants worth up to $60 million, $160,000 in cash and 30 firearms, authorities reported Wednesday. A force of 450 officers from numerous agencies Tuesday served dozens of search warrants. Officials said Wednesday they still were searching almost 2,000 acres in Humboldt and Mendocino counties that belonged to the targets of the 2-year-old investigation.

SAN DIEGO -- Eighteen members of a gambling ring that allegedly used the Internet and toll-free numbers to take sports bets and then violence to collect from losers were indicted Wednesday in San Diego. The 18 suspects, most from San Diego and Los Angeles, are accused of taking millions of dollars in sports bets over the last decade for the Macho Sports operation that operated in Peru and California. Many of the bets involved wagers on NFL, NBA and Major-League Baseball games. FBI agents Wednesday arrested 14 of the 18. Foreign law enforcement agents arrested one suspect in Oslo, Norway.

Batkid successfully rescued the San Francisco Giants' mascot, Lou Seal, on Friday, the 5-year-old boy's final act of bravery before heading to City Hall to a throng of adoring fans. Everywhere Miles went, crowds of city-dwellers amassed to watch as he and Batman rescued a damsel in distress, foiled the Riddler at a bank, and then responded to a flash mob at Union Square alerting him to his third challenge: rescuing Lou Seal from the clutches of the Penguin at AT&T Park. In between it all, he also found some time for a bathroom break and lunch.

Federal prosecutors on Saturday filed a murder charge against the suspect in the shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport in which a Transportation Security Administration screener was killed. Other charges related to firing a weapon inside an international airport were also filed against 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia , who was identified by police as the man who opened fire inside Terminal 3 about 9:20 a.m. Friday. At an FBI news briefing Saturday, officials confirmed that Ciancia used an assault rifle in the attack.

A 19-year-old Temecula college freshman was taken into custody Thursday on federal charges he "sextorted" newly crowned Miss Teen USA and other young women around the world by hijacking their computer's webcams to capture naked images. Jared James Abrahams allegedly commandeered webcams of unsuspecting women in Canada, Ireland, Russia and across the United States, a federal criminal complaint unsealed Thursday said. After hacking into the webcams to obtain nude photos and videos, Abrahams allegedly used them to blackmail females as young as 16 to provide even more images, videos or live chat sessions.

About three dozen members of the Rollin' 30s Harlem Crips were taken into custody Thursday on federal and state charges after early morning raids by hundreds of LAPD officers and FBI agents across South Los Angeles, officials said. The arrests on gang, drug and conspiracy charges are the culmination of Operation Thumbs Down, an investigation initiated in 2012 to target high-level shot-callers in the Rollin' 30s Harlem Crips, one of the city's 10 most notorious gangs with an estimated 700 to 1,000 members, federal officials said.

CASCADE, Idaho -- Authorities in Idaho on Saturday divulged few details about how an FBI tactical agent had just shot and killed the suspected kidnapper and subject of a five-state Amber Alert. James Lee DiMaggio, 40, was shot and killed at about 5:20 p.m. local time as ground units moved in on his camp, which was spotted from the air, authorities said. Roughly one hour later, officials at news conference in Cascade, Idaho said Hannah Anderson, the 16-year-old who DiMaggio allegedly abducted from an east San Diego County home, was recovered safely and recuperating from her ordeal in a hospital.

Nearly two months after an alleged friend of purported Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was fatally shot by an FBI special agent while being questioned by the FBI and the Massachusetts State Police in his Orlando, Fla., apartment, few details have emerged about the circumstances of his death and his connection to Tsarnaev. That's part of the reason the ACLU has called on state officials in Massachusetts and Florida to conduct their own investigations into the May 22 death of Ibragim Todashev.

WASHINGTON - A friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and killed by an FBI special agent early Wednesday when an interview about the April 15 explosion turned into a “violent confrontation” in Orlando, Fla., that also left the agent injured. Federal law enforcement sources identified the slain man as Ibragim Todashev, 27, a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter like Tsarnaev who was being questioned by the FBI agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers and other law enforcement officials.

Former Assemblyman Michael Duvall of Yorba Linda will not face any federal charges after an FBI investigation into his comments, made over an open microphone, that he had a sexual relationship with a woman who was believed to be a Sempra Energy lobbyist, officials announced today. In response, Sempra Energy said it has reinstated the lobbyist to active status as an employee. Lobbyist Heidi Barsuglia issued a statement saying, "This experience has been a professional and personal nightmare.

SAN DIEGO -- Eighteen members of a gambling ring that allegedly used the Internet and toll-free numbers to take sports bets and then violence to collect from losers were indicted Wednesday in San Diego. The 18 suspects, most from San Diego and Los Angeles, are accused of taking millions of dollars in sports bets over the last decade for the Macho Sports operation that operated in Peru and California. Many of the bets involved wagers on NFL, NBA and Major-League Baseball games. FBI agents Wednesday arrested 14 of the 18. Foreign law enforcement agents arrested one suspect in Oslo, Norway.

WASHINGTON - A friend of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev who was shot and killed by an FBI special agent in Orlando, Fla., early Wednesday was being questioned primarily about a 2-year-old triple homicide in Waltham, Mass., and about whether Tsarnaev played a role in those killings, officials said. Federal law enforcement sources identified the slain man as Ibragim Todashev, 27. They said he suddenly lunged with a knife and injured the agent in a “violent confrontation” during an interview. Todashev is a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter like Tsarnaev and was being questioned by the FBI agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers and other law enforcement officials.